Metal detectors for Met officers following fatal police shooting

SEARCH wands are to be rolled out across the Metropolitan Police force after an officer was shot dead in a custody suite, Cressida Dick has revealed.

Sergeant Matt Ratana, 54, was killed in Croydon Custody Centre, in south London, in the early hours of September 25 as he prepared to search a handcuffed suspect.

Speaking on an LBC radio phone-in yesterday, Met Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick said the force has made changes to custody suites in the wake of his death.

She said: “First of all, sergeants who are the custody detention officers in charge ... when they go to speak to somebody in the first instance will always be wearing body armour, even though they are indoors.

“And the second thing we have done, which hopefully keeps the custody area safer and everybody safer, is that out on the street more and more of our officers will be using [wands], as a supplement to the search – stop and search or whatever has happened at the point of arrest.

“So, this is just an extra protection, never ever to substitute for a search but may just find a weapon or a knife.”

Dame Cressida said officers dealing with the most violent offenders had already been using wands, but the tactic is now being rolled out across the Met. The 23-year-old suspected of killing Sgt Ratana, understood to be Louis De Zoysa, was last week arrested on suspicion of murder.

He also suffered a gunshot wound and was taken to hospital in a critical condition, but the Met said he had since “stabilised” and was considered fit to be arrested last Friday.